Common Questions

Asked often, answered plainly.

If your question is not here, email us and a person will answer.

Is it really free for congregations?

Yes. Potluck sign-up sheets, meal trains, and revival meeting itineraries cost nothing, with no ads and no limit on how many of your members you add. Cordial earns its keep from the paid hosting packages, so the everyday tools can stay free.

What does hosting a meeting cost?

Hosting is a paid upgrade sized to the meeting: a small youth class is not priced like an area school meeting. Email us with what you are hosting and roughly how many people, and we will give you a plain answer.

Do our volunteers need accounts or an app?

No. Volunteers only ever need the share link. It opens in the phone's browser; they tap a slot, type their name, and are done. Only the people who organize things sign in with a password.

Who sets up our account?

We do. Email us and we create your site at your own address, like yourname.cordialconference.com. From there you invite your own committee members; each one gets an email link and sets their own password.

Does it work well on phones?

It was designed for phones first. Every volunteer-facing page, from claiming a potluck dish to offering a bed, is built to be used one-handed from a church pew. The committee dashboards work on a phone too, though a bigger screen is more comfortable for placement work.

Can other congregations or boards see our information?

No. Every account's data is fully separated. Your rosters, addresses, and sign-ups are visible only to the people you have added to your own account.

How do online payments work?

Payments run through Stripe and settle directly into your organization's own account; Cordial never holds your money. Card processing fees apply as with any card payment. If your meeting would rather not take payment online, you can skip it and collect checks on arrival instead.

How does the texting work? Do we need anything?

Nothing on your side. Text messages, like lodging assignments going out to guests and hosts, are sent by the system as part of the hosting packages. Email works the same way, and everything sent is logged where the committee can see it.

Can we start with last year's information?

An automatic year-to-year rollover is on the roadmap but not built yet. In the meantime we can help import existing lists when we set up your account, and schools fix their own details through their edit links, which covers most of the churn.

Can registration go on our own website?

Yes. The registration form can be embedded in your district's or congregation's existing website, or you can simply link to your Cordial address. Either way the responses land in the same roster.

What if someone registers the wrong information?

Registrants get an edit link and can fix their own information without calling anyone. Committee members can also edit anything directly from the dashboard.

What keeps spam out of the public forms?

Invisible spam protection screens the public forms. There are no puzzles or checkboxes for your volunteers; a real person never notices it is there.

Can we get our data out?

Yes, any time. Schools, attendees, board members, and teachers export to CSV with one click and open straight in Excel. Your data is yours.

Still wondering about something?

Ask the question the way you would ask a neighbor. We would rather answer twenty small questions than have you guess.

Email us